But at the same time, Dakk, the creation story is vitally important to rebutting "The Problem of Evil" from a Christian point of view.
Epiricus' argument is solidly logical and can't be denied, so the best rebuttal to the question of how God can be all those things AND allow evil, is that God, in his omniscient wisdom, has chosen to allow evil into the world as punishment for the events of the biblical creation story. Supposedly. As long as you put your fingers in your ears and say "Lalala" whenever someone brings up all the holes in the story of Eden, you'll be okay.
I see a few rebuttals in this thread trying to imply there's a logical fallacy in this argument, but trust me, there isn't. It's pure logic. Which is not to say it's special, or better than you. Only that it a very basic foundational statement. It would be like trying to find a fallacy in 1+1=2.
Rebuttals that attempt dismiss the argument on the grounds that God is unknowable go against Occam's Razor, which necessitates that any solution which requires a mind greater than humanity can supply is not a solution at all. The less assumptions the better, and we're already assuming God's existence, so we're starting this game with a handicap in the first place.
Darkflagrance and Fieari's rebuttal is a common one too: that evil is okay if it's for the greater good. But this actually smacks into the wall of "The Evidential Problem of Evil", which is stated thus:
1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
2. An omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
3. Therefore, there does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being.
Considering that this version of the argument is inductive, you don't see it very often. Arguments through induction are easy to poke holes in.
The most fascinating rebuttal I know of is the suggestion that evil (or, to be more accurate: suffering, which is easier to define) has to exist in order for happiness etc to exist, much the way darkness is merely the absence of light, or cold merely the absence of heat and so on. And perhaps – it is argued – much the same way that you can't have 0 degrees Kelvin (aka: a pure absence of heat), if you were somehow able to divide love into discreet "quanta" which could be measured, you'd find that there actually is no area in which a measurement can reach 0 degrees love. Or something like that. I don't buy it, because it's possible for a perfectly normal, perfectly rational human being to decide to do something evil, just because they feel like it. And that goes against the theory in my book.
And then there's the rebuttal that God has never been defined as "Omnipotent" in the first place, but rather "Almighty", which is distinctly different somehow. As "almighty" in this sense has no clear definition, there's really not much to say about it. But it's an interesting idea.
In truth, we don't need rebuttals. We don't even need a special story explaining the argument away. Because it's entirely possible for God to be missing one of those three "omni"s, without the universe falling apart. Indeed, the universe is a great example: 3 of the four fundamental forces of nature are perfectly symmetrical: the strong force, the weak force, and electromagnetism. But gravity is completely out of balance. And yet, here we are, doing perfectly fine, even though - from a mathematical/physics perspective, everything's technically out of whack.
ie: just because congregations repeat to themselves over and over that "God is perfect" does not make it so.
iee: God is not perfect. Oh well. Get over it.
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Topic: ~Epiricus (another religious discussion) (Read 11582 times)